He sounded candid and earnest. But so do TV pitch men. But I took the chance, after a moment’s consideration.
I said, “Did you know Jackie Held is a good friend of the Heffners? She was there the day I had my first run-in with Pug.”
He stared at me. Finally he whispered, “The little bitch …”
“Remember, you’re never heavy,” I cautioned him. “And here’s something else I learned — Johnny Quirk had a thousand-dollar bet riding on the Rams in that Bear game. The Heffners booked it.”
He shrugged. “They wouldn’t kill a man for a grand. But that other, about Jackie, that really burns me.”
“Why? You’re not emotionally involved with the girl, and as long as you’re retired, she couldn’t have any secrets to carry to the Heffners.”
“Look, I was paying the girl’s rent, wasn’t I? And she knew how I hated the Heffners.”
“That’s adolescent,” I told him, “and you know it. When did you start to hate the Heffners?”
He looked out at the pool again, and his voice was quiet. “I didn’t start it. I took a girl away from Lenny, a girl he really carried the torch for. I — married her.”
“You’re still married to her?”
He nodded. “Though I haven’t lived with her for five years. She’s been in Spain for the last three.”
“She’s the mother of your daughter?”
He looked at me again. “That’s right. And the only reason I haven’t divorced her. She’s given me enough cause for divorce.”
“Simple reciprocity, then,” I said. “I mean, Pug Heffner moving in on Jackie. She was up at Arrowhead with him Thursday.”
His face was again composed. “I’ll let him take over her rent.”
“And go no further than that,” I told him. “Because if you should harm her, I’d feel guilty about telling you what I did.”
He frowned. “Why should you worry about her?”
“Because she’s a woman. That might not mean much to a man like you, who has dealt in women as a commodity. But I’m still a little old-fashioned.”
His voice was tight. “Easy, Callahan. I’ve got a daughter, remember.”
“I’ve got a million daughters,” I said, and stood up. “You wouldn’t want me to learn tact at my advanced age, would you?”
“No,” he said wearily, “I suppose not. You’ll never be rich, Callahan.”
“So I’ve been told before.” I fingered the bump behind my ear. “You’re sure there’s nothing you want to tell me? I can keep certain secrets. Johnny Quirk’s death has become personal enough for me to surrender a few ethical standards.”
“There’s nothing,” he said quietly. “So help me, I’m in as much of a fog as you are.”
“And you won’t be rough on Jackie?”
“Not physically. I promise.”
I’d left my breakfast in Santa Monica and it was past lunch time. The nausea was gone and I was hungry. I drove over to Cini’s, thinking of the first time I’d run into Rick Martin, and how I’d slapped his face.
And how he’d promised I’d have reason to regret it.
His attitude had changed since then. That could be because of the change in mine. Or his learning of my few influential connections. Or perhaps, under his new Beverly Hills veneer, Enrico Martino was playing me for a patsy. I never felt comfortable around him.
Spaghetti and garlic bread with a bottle of beer, and back to the wars.
At the West Side Station of the Los Angeles Police Department, Captain Apoyan listened to my sad story of the brutal Heffners.
Then he put the tips of his fingers together and studied them. “What do you want me to do, Brock? This isn’t Santa Monica.”
“I know that. But they’re always screaming about co-operation, aren’t they? And I live in West Los Angeles, don’t I? And Sergeant Pascal will tell you about Jackie Held. She lives in West Los Angeles, too, and her being a friend of the Heffners could tie in with the Quirk murder. That’s what I was investigating over at the Heffners’.”
“The Quirk murder isn’t our baby, Brock. That’s a Beverly Hills problem.”
“All right, Pontius Pilate.” I started for the door.
“Easy, boy,” Apoyan said soothingly. “Now, don’t go rushing off.”
I turned around to face him, waiting.
“I’ll send Pascal over to talk to the Heffners. But he’ll have to take a local man along with him. They’re very touchy in that snug little village.”
“All right. Thank you, Captain.”
His smile was somber. “Such a big man to have such a little brain. Why didn’t you come to us before you went to the Heffners?”
“I wasn’t sure you’d co-operate. And I went there in good faith, not hunting trouble.”
“But armed?” I didn’t answer.
He said, “Stick to hotel skips and credit investigations, Brock. Leave the tough stuff to the experts.” I said nothing.
He looked at me levelly. “In our part of town, anyway. Am I coming through?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He waved me out. I’d helped him plenty the last time we’d met, but there is something about the private-enterprise detective that brings out antagonisms in the municipal man. Maybe they resent our freedom from the time clock, or maybe it’s the many charlatans in my trade. Whatever the reason, their attitude has the effect of putting us on a narrow ridge between the rascal and the law. It was easier for my kind to fall among the rascals; our work was more appreciated and the pay was better.
This country would be as badly off without private investigating agencies as it would be without private schools. There was too much work to be done for the taxpayer to carry the entire burden.
At least, these are the things I try to tell myself. The reality could be that I never outgrew my cops-and-robbers stage.
Somewhere, the killer of Johnny Quirk was laughing at all of us. Sergeant Gnup might be closer to a solution than I was, but I doubted it. And I had no place to go.
Back at the office, I phoned the Quirk home and asked for Moira, but she was out and the maid didn’t know when she would be back. She took the message.
The deceased had been too active; he’d lived in too many worlds. From the cradle to the brothel, women had been very important to him, but he was still a man’s man in the better sense of that phrase.
His secrets had been buried with him; the picture I had of him had come from too many divergent sources to be unified or true.
Motive, means and opportunity, the deadly triplicate necessary to murder. Rick Martin had the opportunity; he was on the scene. And quite possibly a motive if he was lying about his unconcern for Jackie Held. But means? Where was the gun? No, Martin had been the patsy, either intentionally or not.
Who had all three — motive, means and opportunity?
Pat Curtis had his alibi and Pug Heffner his. And Pug’s included Jackie Held’s.
Pug Heffner was a shield I couldn’t pierce; I’d have better luck with Jackie if I gave her concentrated attention. I phoned her, and there was no answer.
I was sick of driving around the suspicion circuit, but I drove over to park in front of the triplex off Pico, anyway. Somebody else was already parked in front.
It was the chartreuse Lincoln convertible and Moira Quirk was sitting behind the wheel.
I parked behind and went over to her car to open the door on the curb side. Her radio was on and she was smoking. She looked at me without interest.
“Maybe we could wait together,” I suggested.
“I don’t mind.” Her trained voice held an intriguing timbre.
I sat in the seat next to her and closed the door. “Want to tell me about it?”
She leaned forward to snap off the radio. “I came to ask her about John.”
“You mean you think she knows things about him that you don’t?”
She didn’t look at me. “That’s correct. She meant a lot to John.”
“Pr
obably no more than a hundred of her kind he’s met before.”
She shook her head. “John never told me about the others. He talked about Jackie frequently.”
“Why? She’s certainly nothing special.”
“Johnny thought so. Do you know where she’s from?”
“Waukesha, Wisconsin.”
“That’s right. And my mother was from Pewaukee, practically next door to Waukesha.” Moira’s voice was bitter. “Even in that, John saw some kind of symbolism.”
“For God’s sake,” I said.
Nothing from Moira Quirk.
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “And if Jackie does know something about — about what happened, why should she tell you things she wouldn’t tell the police?”
Moira’s thin face was cynical. “Because I can offer money, and introductions to important studio people.”
She threw her cigarette out onto the street and pressed the selector bar on the car radio. A news report, courtesy of Anti-Paino, came on. The warm voice of the announcer explained how Anti-Paino was better than aspirin in seven highly important ways. Doctors recommended it.
The newscaster gave us the foreign, domestic and local news without any word devoted to the Quirk murder. Moira snapped it off.
I asked, “How long have you been waiting?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“Are you sure the bell rang?”
She nodded.
“Maybe she’s just not answering it. I had a feeling, when I saw her last night, that she was frightened of something.”
“You could try.”
I went along the walk that skirted the first two units and up onto the porch. I could hear the door chimes when I pressed the button.
I waited, and was about to turn away, when the dog began to howl. The sound seemed to come from the back yard of the house next door, but it sent a shiver of premonition along my spine.
I went to the living-room window, but the drapes were drawn too tightly. Then I remembered the high window at the end of the dining room and I walked around to that.
It was too high for me, but I brought a galvanized ash can over from next to the incinerator and stood on that.
I could see Jackie Held now. Stretched out on the living-room floor.
I went back to the Lincoln and told Moira, “Get out of here. Get out of here right now. And don’t tell anybody you were here. I won’t either.”
She stared at me, an unspoken question in the stare.
“She could be dead,” I said. “But dead or not, it’s no place for you. Think of your dad, and what a holiday the papers would have it if was known you were here. Beat it!”
I slammed the door of her car and waited until she was around the corner before going next door to phone the police.
thirteen
CAPTAIN APOYAN looked at the shade gently flapping in his office and back to some papers he was studying. I sat on a straight-backed chair pretending I didn’t know he was ignoring me.
Sergeant Pascal came in and put some reports on his desk, gave me one loaded look, and went out again. Apoyan seemed very interested in the new reports.
I said, “It’s your baby now, Captain. Remember, this afternoon you told me it wasn’t your baby?”
He looked up thoughtfully. “Yes, I remember. She was poisoned late last night, it seems. Conine in that beer, that — ” He frowned.
“Einlicher?” I asked.
“That’s right. How did you know?”
“It’s my favorite beer. No bars sell it, except for Lenny Heffner’s bar in Santa Monica.”
He nodded. “Your favorite, eh? When was the last time you had some of it?”
Very casual question, and loaded right to the last syllable. They probably had my prints on the bottle I’d had last night at Jackie Held’s.
I pretended to give it some thought. “Let’s see, I had a bottle at Heffner’s a few days ago, and then — oh, I remember, I had a bottle at Jackie’s place late yesterday afternoon.”
His brown Armenian eyes seemed to devour me. “Try not to be too casual, Brock.”
“You too, Captain,” I said. “You know my reputation and I resent trick questions.”
His face showed no emotion. “Was it a party at Miss Held’s late yesterday afternoon?”
“Just Miss Held and I.”
“Could it have lasted as late as, say, midnight, or perhaps beyond that?”
“No. I was at Ted’s Grill by nine o’clock, and in bed by ten-thirty.”
“Alone?”
“I always sleep alone, Captain.”
“That’s unfortunate,” he said. “Alibis are important in murder cases.” He stood up. “And you working for Rick Martin, and all.”
“I’m not working for Rick Martin, Captain.”
“We’ll see about that. We’ve sent for him. In the meantime, Officer Caroline will show you your cell.”
Officer Caroline was a fat man with a bad case of B.O. and no warmth in his heart for Brock Callahan. He now stood in the open doorway.
Captain Apoyan had sat down again, giving all his attention to the papers on his desk.
I said, “I want to phone my attorney.”
Caroline asked, “Okay, Captain?”
Apoyan nodded without looking up.
I went out to the corridor with Caroline and down to a pay phone. From there I phoned Tommy Self. Tommy had learned his football with me at Stanford. But his law he had learned at Harvard.
I had just missed him, his secretary told me. He was on his way home. I told her my story and asked her to relay it to him at home as soon as he got there. She promised she would.
I tried to keep upwind from Caroline all the way to the cell block.
There, as he clanged the door behind me, he asked, “Anything witty to take back to the boys in the squad room, Callahan?”
I smiled at him through the bars. “I’m glad I use Dial soap. I just wish that everybody did.”
It didn’t come home to him. He shook his head and went down the corridor, out of sight.
I still had the lump on my head, the puffed lip, the loose tooth, the sore ribs and the blue-black mark between my knuckles. To this was now added an ache in the bad knee and a growing headache.
Footsteps along the corridor and the long, sour face of Sergeant Pascal came into view. “This girl got any parents, relatives, Callahan?”
“Her father’s dead. I don’t know about her mother or other relatives.”
“Where is she from originally?”
“Waukesha. That’s in Wisconsin, the prettiest part of Wisconsin.”
He looked at me suspiciously. “It’s hardly a time to be flippant.”
“I was just remembering her words, Sergeant.”
“You’re chin-deep in hot water. You know that, don’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“The Captain warned you only this afternoon about steering clear of murder cases.”
“I promise not to report any more dead bodies I find in your district, Sergeant.”
“You’re too lippy, Callahan.”
I said nothing.
His voice went on. “I was never in your fan club, but tying up with a hoodlum like Martin was further than I figured you’d go.”
I yawned.
“What’s the matter, did you lose your voice?”
For answer, I went over and flushed the growler.
He glared at me for seconds. Then he said, “We know how to handle insolence, Callahan.” He went back up the corridor.
They certainly didn’t know how to handle taxpayers. Well, Tommy would come down and smooth things over. Tommy belonged to the Young Republicans and the Old Democrats, Lions, Elks, Rotary, Odd Fellows, two beach clubs and one country club. He had a soothing voice and a quick mind and had been the greatest in a long line of great Stanford quarterbacks.
Tommy would straighten everything out. I kept telling myself.
But if I told Tommy Self about Moi
ra Quirk, he would insist that I tell it to the police. He works that way, with the police completely, because of his great regard for the law. And I didn’t see any point in telling the police about Moira Quirk.
That sad man, her father, was carrying enough of a cross right now. And I was working for him. And only an idiot or a Caroline would consider her a suspect, sitting so innocently in front of the deceased’s home.
Of course, there were always neighbors, and chartreuse Lincoln convertibles are not the most common cars in town….
Some drunk a few cells down began to sing. The singing stopped and he began to moan. The moaning stopped and the silence was heavy.
I began to grow annoyed. A little disciplinary gesture like throwing me into the can for five minutes I could understand. This was getting too boring, forcing me to sit alone with my thoughts. My watch told me it had been an hour and a half ago that the aura of Caroline had gone away.
Then, just as I had decided to bellow, I heard footsteps again and hoped they were for me.
They were the nimble feet of Tommy Self and he looked abashed. “Sorry, Brock. I stopped off at the Club for a drink on the way home.”
“Which of your many clubs did you favor this evening?”
He ignored that. “I talked to Mr. Quirk. He’ll write a blank check and we can fill it in for any amount of bond they want.”
“To hell with that. They haven’t any reason to hold me.”
“Enough. What didn’t you tell them, Brock?”
“They know everything I know, and probably more. I tried to get Apoyan interested in the Quirk case this afternoon without success. This is the thanks I get.”
Tommy sighed. “Where’s the turnkey? Martin’s here with his lawyer and there’ll probably be a conference.” He looked up the corridor. “I thought the turnkey would be here.”
Then there were footsteps again and an officer came along with a key. He swung the door open and nodded for me to precede him.
As soon as I stepped into Apoyan’s office I felt better. The atmosphere of the room was lighter; neither Pascal nor Apoyan looked as hostile as they had before. Rick Martin was sitting in there, and next to him was the town’s most famous attorney.
Captain Apoyan said, “I’ve just had a phone call from Lieutenant Remington, Brock. Why didn’t you tell me you were working for the Beverly Hills Police Department?”
Day of the Ram Page 12
